Replay the Live Chat With Bill Moyers

January 7, 2015 | Updated September 21, 2015

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On Tuesday, January 13, Bill Moyers participated in a live chat here at BillMoyers.com. Bill talked about a wide variety of topics including Citizens United, the history behind Selma, his memories of working with President Johnson, and much, much more. You can replay the entire text chat by scrolling through the conversation below.

Tip: The conversation plays out in real time, so you have to start at the bottom and scroll up.

[Comment From Do you think Elizabeth Warren should run for presidet?Do you think Elizabeth Warren should run for presidet?: ]

Thanks Bill. We love you.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:22 Do you think Elizabeth Warren should run for presidet?

3:22

[Comment From Linda Massey HeunLinda Massey Heun: ]

Thank you so much

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:22 Linda Massey Heun

3:22

[Comment From LesleyLesley: ]

Thank you again!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:22 Lesley

3:22

[Comment From JonThomasJonThomas: ]

Thank you Bill

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:22 JonThomas

3:22

[Comment From MJ from MontrealMJ from Montreal: ]

Thank you very much!!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:22 MJ from Montreal

3:22

Moyers & Company:

We’ll try to get to them next time. Thanks PrettyMeadow!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:22 Moyers & Company

3:22

[Comment From prettymeadowprettymeadow: ]

Can you answer the questions posted on your site?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:22 prettymeadow

3:22

[Comment From How important is overturning Citizens United? What impact do you think it would have?How important is overturning Citizens United? What impact do you think it would have?: ]

Thank you!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:22 How important is overturning Citizens United? What impact do you think it would have?

3:22

[Comment From MAIversonMAIverson: ]

Thank you! Please keep doing these!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:22 MAIverson

3:20

Moyers & Company:

You will be able to replay this chat anytime in this window. We’ll also be posting highlights from Bill’s chat in a separate post.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:20 Moyers & Company

3:20

Moyers & Company:

But we do appreciate all the questions and comments! Bill has seen them all.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:20 Moyers & Company

3:19

Moyers & Company:

Again, we’re sorry we couldn’t get to all the questions you sent. We had so many, there was no way we could get to them all.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:19 Moyers & Company

3:18

Moyers & Company:

Thanks to all of you for joining us today!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:18 Moyers & Company

3:16

Bill Moyers:

Oops! We’re out of time. But thanks to all of you for your questions even if I couldn’t get around to every one of them. Stay tuned to our website BillMoyers.com. I’ll see you there.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:16 Bill Moyers

3:15

Bill Moyers:

The film blows the possibility for true drama here — the drama of history happening right before our eyes. Nonetheless, go see it. You’ll be reminded of what happens when courage on the street is met by a moral response from power.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:15 Bill Moyers

3:14

Bill Moyers:

The nation was electrified. Watching on television, Martin Luther King wept.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:14 Bill Moyers

3:14

Bill Moyers:

Johnson was more animated and passionate than I have ever seen him, and I was standing very near him, off to the right.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:14 Bill Moyers

3:13

Bill Moyers:

In fact, he made that speech in the House of Representatives where the State of Union speeches are delivered.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:13 Bill Moyers

3:12

Bill Moyers:

Also, the director has a limpid President speaking in the Senate chamber to a normal number of Senators.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:12 Bill Moyers

3:12

Bill Moyers:

and within days he made his own famous “We Shall Overcome” speech that transformed the political environment. By the way, this is one of the weakest moments in the film.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:12 Bill Moyers

3:11

Bill Moyers:

He wouldn’t have welcome the bloodshed at the bridge, but when it happened he knew the time had come …

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:11 Bill Moyers

3:10

Bill Moyers:

He asked King to give him more time to bring a few Southern “moderates” over to the cause, but after King made the case that blacks had waited too long for too little, Johnson told him: “Then go out there and make it possible for me to do the right thing.”

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:10 Bill Moyers

3:09

Bill Moyers:

As he said to Martin Luther King, “You’re an activist; I’m a politician” and politicians read the tide of events better than most of read the hands on our watch; he knew he needed public sentiment to gather sufficient momentum before he could introduce and quickly pass a voting rights bill.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:09 Bill Moyers

3:08

Bill Moyers:

He was concerned that coming so soon after the Civil Rights Act of l964 there was little political will in Congress to follow up so soon with voting rights legislation.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:08 Bill Moyers

3:07

Bill Moyers:

casting the President as opposed to the Selma March, which the director does, is an exaggeration.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:07 Bill Moyers

3:07

Bill Moyers:

Then …

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:07 Bill Moyers

3:07

Bill Moyers:

And even if you want to think of Lyndon Johnson as vile enough to want to do that, he was way, way too smart to hand Hoover the means of blackmailing him.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:07 Bill Moyers

3:06

Bill Moyers:

Some of our most scrupulous historians have denounced that one

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:06 Bill Moyers

3:05

Bill Moyers:

…. suggesting the very opposite of the truth,in this case, that the President was behind J. Edgar Hoover’s sending the “sex tape” to Coretta King.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:05 Bill Moyers

3:05

Bill Moyers:

As for LBJ: There’s one egregious and outrageous portrayal that is the worst kind of creative license ….

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:05 Bill Moyers

3:04

Bill Moyers:

To the courage and fear of those black people who put themselves on the line for freedom’s sake; the ambivalence in Martin Luther King facing the inevitability of leadership and the constant threat of death.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:04 Bill Moyers

3:03

Bill Moyers:

There are some beautiful and poignant moments in the film that take us closer to the truth than anything I’ve seen to date — to the cruelty visited upon black people by everyday whites and armed authorities.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:03 Bill Moyers

3:03

Bill Moyers:

Many people asked what I thought about the film ….

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:03 Bill Moyers

3:02

Bill Moyers:

But someone had a question about the new film Selma, that I’ll answer now.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:02 Bill Moyers

3:01

Bill Moyers:

Our moderator’s computer just crashed …

Tuesday January 13, 2015 3:01 Bill Moyers

2:55

Bill Moyers:

How to save democracy? As Lewis himself says, only a determined people can do that …

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:55 Bill Moyers

2:55

Bill Moyers:

But now the voices of the poor and working classes are silenced by the unfair advantage the John Roberts’ and the Mitch McConnells and their allies have given those who bankroll our politicians.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:55 Bill Moyers

2:54

Bill Moyers:

… He reminds us that the reason limits were placed on campaign contributions was to protect the integrity of the vote in in this country, so that no one individual or corporation would have the power to override the public will or dictate the outcome of elections.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:54 Bill Moyers

2:53

Bill Moyers:

Listen, no one says it better than John Lewis, who was almost killed in that Selma march across the Pettus Bridge in l965 but survived to serve 28 years in Congress, where he remains today.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:53 Bill Moyers

2:52

Bill Moyers:

And hammer, hammer away, at every level.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:52 Bill Moyers

2:51

Bill Moyers:

But we have to keep our goals clear — corporations are not people, money is not speech.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:51 Bill Moyers

2:51

Bill Moyers:

But it’s all over unless there’s a broad and sustained movement to take on the monied interests. It’s very, very hard to imagine making this happen, in no small part because the issues of money in politics are technical.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:51 Bill Moyers

2:50

Bill Moyers:

Each of us has a special interest in one issue or another – the Keystone pipeline, climate change, a living wage, saving the Grand Canyon….you name your own.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:50 Bill Moyers

2:49

Bill Moyers:

A real mobilization of citizens against the money power that now governs us.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:49 Bill Moyers

2:48

Moyers & Company:

Another one from email: What’s it going to take to save our democracy?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:48 Moyers & Company

2:47

Moyers & Company:

Yes, you’ll be able to replay the chat afterwards, Judith.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:47 Moyers & Company

2:46

[Comment From JudithJudith: ]

Will the text of this chat be available?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:46 Judith

2:46

Bill Moyers:

An ambidexterous demagogue. He’s able to pick the people’s pocket while aggrandizing his own self esteem. An Ivy Leaguer seemingly quite comfortable making a fool out of those who trust him.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:46 Bill Moyers

2:45

Bill Moyers:

Ted Cruz?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:45 Bill Moyers

2:45

[Comment From DavidDavid: ]

What are your thoughts about the future of Ted Cruz in American politics, and higher office?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:45 David

2:44

Bill Moyers:

But setting aside 20 or 30 minutes a day to sample several sources of reporting and analysis is important if you can do it.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:44 Bill Moyers

2:44

Bill Moyers:

You won’t see the scope of what’s at stake if you only watch Fox or Good Morning America. None of us have all the time we need to keep up with a story like that.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:44 Bill Moyers

2:43

Bill Moyers:

But of course I have to read far more widely than one newspaper, one site, one source.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:43 Bill Moyers

2:42

Bill Moyers:

So far I’ve learned what I think I need to know about what happened in Paris.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:42 Bill Moyers

2:42

[Comment From What do you think of the way the media is covering Charli? Is this really about freedom of speech or do you think they should take a higher road?What do you think of the way the media is covering Charli? Is this really about freedom of speech or do you think they should take a higher road?: ]

What do you think of the way the media is covering Charlie? Is this really about freedom of speech or do you think they should take a higher road?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:42 What do you think of the way the media is covering Charli? Is this really about freedom of speech or do you think they should take a higher road?

2:41

Bill Moyers:

Nourish our hearts and souls with the right word, the clear sentence, the perfect image.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:41 Bill Moyers

2:41

Bill Moyers:

Help us see the timeless truth beyond the rhetoric and propaganda — political and corporate . Enable us feel the experience of others (When King Lear asks the blinded Gloucester “How do you see the world?” Gloucester answers, “I see it feelingly.”

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:41 Bill Moyers

2:40

[Comment From JaneJane: ]

What role do (or can) the arts play in social change, political change? What advice do you have for artists who want to make a difference?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:40 Jane

2:39

Bill Moyers:

Knows the issue inside and out … You should also check out my interviews with Ai-Jen Poo, George Goehl and Peter Dreier.

Ganz remains one of our most experienced strategists of organizing — teaches an international course on it at the Kennedy School of Govt at Harvard.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:38 Bill Moyers

2:37

Bill Moyers:

Hold on I’ll get the link.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:37 Bill Moyers

2:37

Bill Moyers:

The one with Marshall Ganz (check it out on our website).

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:37 Bill Moyers

2:36

[Comment From MartinMartin: ]

Of all the interviews you’ve done, is there one that you particularly feel is important for young activists to watch?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:36 Martin

2:35

Bill Moyers:

But when he did the wrong thing — escalating the Vietnam war — the damage was irreparable.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:35 Bill Moyers

2:35

Bill Moyers:

He could absolutely do the right thing at the right time — the reassuring grace, if you will, when he was thrust into the White House after Kennedy’s assassination, the Civil Rights Act of l964, the Voting Rights Act of l965 …

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:35 Bill Moyers

2:34

Bill Moyers:

He had a passion for power but suffered violent dissent in the ranks of his own personality.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:34 Bill Moyers

2:34

Bill Moyers:

He was at times proud, sensitive, impulsive, flambuoyant, sentimental, bold, magnanimous, and graceful (the best dancer in the White House since George Washington); at times temperamental, paranoid, ill of spirit, vulgar.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:34 Bill Moyers

2:33

Bill Moyers:

He had an animal sense of weakness in other men — he wanted to know what you loved and what you feared and once he knew, he came after you.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:33 Bill Moyers

2:32

Bill Moyers:

But he was curiously ill at ease with himself.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:32 Bill Moyers

2:32

Bill Moyers:

I’ve said it before: Lyndon Johnson owned and operated a ferocious ego.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:32 Bill Moyers

2:31

[Comment From How do you remember LBJ?How do you remember LBJ?: ]

How do you remember LBJ?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:31 How do you remember LBJ?

2:31

Bill Moyers:

So we have now a good soldier for the conservative strategy of legal resistance to equal rights would now occupying its commanding heights.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:31 Bill Moyers

2:31

Bill Moyers:

He seems to believe discrimination has to be intentional to be unconstitutional – that there’s no such thing as systemic racism, or racism layered over decades or centuries.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:31 Bill Moyers

2:30

Bill Moyers:

Read some of the memos/ op-eds the younger Roberts wrote arguing for watering down the VRA and you’ll understand why the conservative movement saw him as their new white hope on the bench.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:30 Bill Moyers

2:29

Bill Moyers:

More or less what you can imagine a privileged elite of corporate law would think, no?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:29 Bill Moyers

2:29

Bill Moyers:

Roberts’ great conceit and it’s one shared by other conservative members of the court, including Clarence Thomas who keeps trying to kick over the ladder by which he himself was hoisted to prominence — is that racism is no longer the problem it once was.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:29 Bill Moyers

2:28

Bill Moyers:

You may know the chief justice was a young lawyer in Reagan’s DOJ during the l980s and doing everything he could to undermine the effectiveness of the Voting Rights Act.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:28 Bill Moyers

2:27

Bill Moyers:

The George Wallace of then would be pleased with the John Roberts of today.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:27 Bill Moyers

2:27

Bill Moyers:

On the other hand, the reactionaries never give up.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:27 Bill Moyers

2:27

Bill Moyers:

He said no — we would have a woman first. Well, one down, another to go.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:27 Bill Moyers

2:26

Bill Moyers:

After he signed the Voting Rights Act I asked LBJ if he thought this meant we’d have a black president in our time.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:26 Bill Moyers

2:25

Bill Moyers:

We’re a different country today because of what happened then, obviously. with black Americans holding office all the way up to the president of the United States.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:25 Bill Moyers

2:25

Bill Moyers:

for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:25 Bill Moyers

2:24

Bill Moyers:

Just as Lyndon Johnson said at the time, the right to vote is “the most powerful instrument ever devised …

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:24 Bill Moyers

2:23

Moyers & Company:

Another question that came in via email: You were involved in passing the Voting Rights Act? How do you assess its impact all these years later?

the rule of the wealthy few for the purpose of increasing their wealth.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:22 Bill Moyers

2:22

Bill Moyers:

.We are just this close …. I’m squeezing my index finger and thumb tightly …. from oligarchy

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:22 Bill Moyers

2:21

Bill Moyers:

. Money’s always been a force, but never to the extent it is today ….

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:21 Bill Moyers

2:21

Bill Moyers:

And finally — although I should have started with this one: The triumph of money over every aspect of government.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:21 Bill Moyers

2:21

Bill Moyers:

Rather, first thing in the morning. If you tackle it before bedtime, you won’t sleep!!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:21 Bill Moyers

2:20

Bill Moyers:

Read it before you go to bed tonight.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:20 Bill Moyers

2:20

Bill Moyers:

A long-time senior Republican staff member of Congress wrote an extraordinary essay for billmoyers.com under the title THE DEEP STATE.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:20 Bill Moyers

2:19

Bill Moyers:

There’s a vast government we don’t see.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:19 Bill Moyers

2:19

Bill Moyers:

Second, the growth of the Deep State — private instruments or agencies of power acting for and funded by the government (intelligence, the military, etc.).

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:19 Bill Moyers

2:18

Bill Moyers:

The two of them — Dilulio and Fukyama — make this point brilliantly.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:18 Bill Moyers

2:18

Bill Moyers:

Check out a recent posting on billmoyers.com of an article by John Dilulio reviewing Francis Fukyama’s new book book on the state of democracy.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:18 Bill Moyers

2:17

Bill Moyers:

First, the sheer size and complexity of government

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:17 Bill Moyers

2:16

[Comment From Richard EllmeyerRichard Ellmeyer: ]

How would you describe the most striking and significant differences in our country/government that you have experienced/observed between the Vietnam era and today?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:16 Richard Ellmeyer

2:15

Bill Moyers:

It was a strange experience but not the first one like it.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:15 Bill Moyers

2:15

Bill Moyers:

He must have been afraid that his own base would tar and feather him if he did.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:15 Bill Moyers

2:14

Bill Moyers:

In the studio he wouldn’t budge from his talking points.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:14 Bill Moyers

2:14

Bill Moyers:

I had on one of my programs last year the leader of a major conservative think tank. In the green room he was pleasant, reasonable and engaging.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:14 Bill Moyers

2:13

Bill Moyers:

Honestly I don’t know how we can have a conversation with someone who doesn’t want one with us.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:13 Bill Moyers

2:13

Bill Moyers:

And studies show that many people prefer their opinions even if they are not supported by evidence than they want even infallible facts.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:13 Bill Moyers

2:12

Bill Moyers:

Steve Colbert calls this the Age of Truthiness — when the sense that something should be true is more important than whether it is true or not.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:12 Bill Moyers

2:12

Bill Moyers:

Good question!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:12 Bill Moyers

2:11

[Comment From LesleyLesley: ]

I’m constantly distressed by all the right wing so-called “journalism” circulating our airwaves, particularly the conspiracy theories and other bizarre and blatantly false propaganda. (For example about 9-11 or the Boston Bombing). Why do you think people believe these ideas? How can we engage in dialogue wit h them?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:11 Lesley

2:11

Bill Moyers:

AND don’t vote for anyone who refuses to take the pledge to cut this cancerous abomination from our body politic!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:11 Bill Moyers

2:10

Bill Moyers:

Confront your Member of Congress whenever he or she is holding a rally or town meeting.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:10 Bill Moyers

2:10

Bill Moyers:

It’s going to require activists, muckraking journalists, legal experts, and voters to band with like-minded people in the Congressional district where you live.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:10 Bill Moyers

2:10

Bill Moyers:

There has to be a long and concerted campaign to shame the politicians who participate in this perpetual system of bribery.

Dear @BillMoyersHQ, Now that you’ve retired, would you consider becoming best friends w/ a 34 yr-old Oregonian who draws comics? #BillChat

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:04 Benjamin Dewey

2:03

Bill Moyers:

I read the Comments section every day – I really do – and I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:03 Bill Moyers

2:03

Bill Moyers:

Our Website BillMoyers.com continues with contributions from a wide variety of sources on what we consider the perils to democracy – inequality, the corrupting power of money in politics, climate change.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:03 Bill Moyers

2:02

Bill Moyers:

So I’ll be more specific about the future after I give it more thought than has been possible to date.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:02 Bill Moyers

2:02

Bill Moyers:

The weekly deadlines and demands over the past decade – with only an occasional hiatus – have been unremitting, as you can imagine.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:02 Bill Moyers

2:02

Bill Moyers:

A few deep breaths – that’s my first priority.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:02 Bill Moyers

2:01

[Comment From CarolineCaroline: ]

What will you be doing next?

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:01 Caroline

2:01

Moyers & Company:

Let’s start with the question that’s on everyone’s mind…

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:01 Moyers & Company

2:01

Bill Moyers:

Hi there!

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:01 Bill Moyers

2:01

Moyers & Company:

Hi Bill! Welcome to our chat.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:01 Moyers & Company

2:01

Moyers & Company:

Okay, Bill is here and ready to chat with you all.

Tuesday January 13, 2015 2:01 Moyers & Company

12:57

Moyers & Company:

Welcome to our live chat with Bill Moyers, which will get started at 2 PM ET. If you would like to enter your questions ahead of time, please enter them in the chat window above.

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